Organic food in London (II) 20070710

Some weeks ago, I decided to try one of those websites which deliver a box with organic vegetables and fruits directly to your door. My advice? Do not do that.

The courier completely ignored my selected delivery slot, coming 30 minutes before the slot began. He called me while I was shopping in a shop nearby. Told him: could you please wait? I’m there in 5 minutes!

I was there in just 3 minutes instead. But for reasons which I still haven’t found, he chose to drop the box in the first door of my street (which is not where I live, by the way) and disappear from the map. I called him and he reassured me he had left the box in my door. I began to suspect the worst and then went door by door until I found my box, with my name, telephone number, e-mail and everything else on top of it, as well as the fruits and vegetables, readily available to anyone which wished to pick one.

I picked the box and went to my real door while mentally cursing somebody’s name, and proceeded to check the contents of the box. Again, while they may have been organically grown, some of them came from places like Holland and Italy, whereas the website insisted that nothing in their produce had been airfreighted.

The peaches tasted specially as if they had spent a good whole week in a fridge, ripening there. Why do I always choose peaches to speak about this? They are a good indicator of quality and care. When things are truly authentic, you can tell just by smelling the fruit.

So I sent them an e-mail detailing the ability of their courier to act as a stupid, and got not one but three phone calls the next day, excusing themselves with absurd reasonings: – he tried to deliver early because you live near the market… – it’s the first time he does it – maybe it’s a hard to find street

Funny to say that even pizzas come directly to my door, with no need for me to give step-by-step instructions on how to find a street in bloody central London, as the customer service girl was suggesting I should do next time I order with them. After that she proceeded to try to convince me to set up a weekly order which is something that obviously I didn’t want to do. I said no thanks, let me check this order properly first, and I said that like three times, because she insisted a lot. Aaaah!

And this past Saturday I passed near a little street market and decided to give it a try. And hey, false-organic-traders, you can save your stuff for yourselves. Those were peaches, and what about the cherries! All of that for a ridiculous price, and no hassle at all. I have the strong feeling that the peaches came from Spain (with the horrible weather that we’ve had these past months it’s impossible to get such a sweet flavour in UK), but I don’t care too much because there wasn’t any poster pompously announcing that the street market hadn’t airfreighted their produce.

So if you want to buy good fruits and vegetables in London, go to a market. I still have to check Borough market which they say has the best organic stuff in London. So I’ll let you know!